


Followed Me Home

by yikesola



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2016, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 06:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18463766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: Susan was a fluffy grey-white cat, with black ears and black feet and a black tail and a black face, and big blue eyes that were so round Phil thought they looked like a Disney animator had designed her. Also, she wasn’t actually called Susan at all. Phil just couldn’t help himself.A fic about falling fast and making rational calls.





	Followed Me Home

Susan was a fluffy grey-white cat, with black ears and black feet and a black tail and a black face, and big blue eyes that were so round Phil thought they looked like a Disney animator had designed her. He thought she looked like Sassy from _Homeward Bound_. And he thought she needed a bath because there were burrs tangled by her paws and her fur looked dirty and muddy in places that a respectable cat would normally keep clean. She _seems_ like a respectable cat though, Phil thinks. Maybe she’s just down on her luck. 

Also, she wasn’t actually called Susan at all. Phil just couldn’t help himself. 

He saw her sitting perched on the stoop of someone’s stair as he walked to the shops one day to buy more cereal as an apology for finishing all of Dan’s in the middle of the night before. She tilted his head at him and he smiled, bent for her to smell his hand, then kept walking. 

As he waited for a light to change at the crosswalk, a block or so later, he noticed the same cat was now sitting perched on top of a newspaper vending machine. He stuck his hand out again, and she put a little paw forward to swipe. But Phil didn’t think she could’ve meant it threateningly because her claws weren’t out. 

He sees the cat again as he steps out of the grocery store, a bag in each hand with enough to get him and Dan through until the next Tesco delivery so he hopefully won’t have to leave the house again today. The cat is sitting to the side by the automatic doors, and she blinks up at him when he notices her, as though she’s just been waiting for him. 

Which is weird, right? He thinks it’s probably a little weird. 

But it’s also, like, the cutest cat he’s ever seen in his life. So he does bend down to give it a scratch under the chin. 

He begins walking home and the cat trots along with him. When he stops to wait for the same streetlight to change as earlier, she weaves between Phil’s legs, rubbing her head against his ankles and purring. When he gets to his building, she slinks past him through the open door before he can have time to stop her. 

He’s standing at the foot of his 47-step climb to the apartment, with the cat sitting like a statute three steps up and looking at him with those round, blue, Disney-worthy eyes, when the thought crosses his mind with a little thrill of panic— did he just _steal_ a cat? Oh god, this is Jessica and the Kool Katz and the unearned reward chocolate all over again... 

But no, he thinks, no... he didn’t _steal_ this cat, it followed him home! He’s completely innocent— if anything he’s the victim of a mad cat stalker. 

Sure, he thinks, as though the cat police would buy that. 

He really can’t say what comes over him, because he knows better, logically, than to think they’re actually going to keep this cat. 

And yet, as he starts climbing the stairs and she takes them leaping beside him, he’s thinking about getting her cleaned up. He’s thinking about her falling asleep in Dan’s lap because Dan is so warm, and about her curling up and purring beside Dan on his bad days and how maybe that might be just what he needs to remind him in those particularly grey moments that bad days don’t last forever. He’s thinking about recreating all his favourite cat vines starring her, and how hilarious they’d all be, like the one that just says “yaaas” whenever spoken to. 

His eyes might already be a little watery... but it _was_ windy outside! And his breath might already be a little laboured.... but he _is_ climbing a ridiculous amount of stairs! Surely if he ignores his cat allergy, well, it won’t be a problem. That’s how allergies work, right? 

He opens the door to the flat and doesn’t hear any sound whatsoever, which he takes to understand that Dan’s up in the gaming room still buried deep in _Guild Wars_. So he ushers the cat into the bathroom and makes quick work of putting the groceries away.

He heads back into the bathroom and sets the cat on the counter. She’s sweet and doesn’t hiss or so much as grumble when he lifts her. 

He picks the burrs out of her fur and talks to her all the while. He doesn’t fancy throwing her into the bathtub and getting all scratched up, because even with how friendly this cat has been since she first crossed Phil’s path, he knows better. So he fills the sink with warm water and lathers up a flannel and just wipes at her muddy coat until it’s glossy and clean— loads of shedding hair coming off with each pass of the flannel, and her purrs are so loud and appreciative that Phil thinks surely Dan will hear her three floors up. 

“Shhh Susan,” he shushes, and thus the name Susan was bestowed upon the cat for no good reason, “You gotta be presentable before we show you off to Dan.” 

Then Phil’s phone vibrates on the bathroom counter, which makes such a loud and horrible sound that he yelps and Susan leaps over the sink of water where he’s been wringing out the flannels and gives a loud yelp as well. It’s Dan calling, but Phil also hears him outside the door saying, “Phil, you okay?” presumably in response to the yelp before he can even pick up the call. 

“Er,” Phil says, trying to catch his breath. Susan’s tail is bushy, and her stance is wary before she calms and stretches and sits prettily on the counter once more. “Yeah, fine!” 

“Whatcha doing?” he says on the other side of the door, almost sounding amused. 

“I uh,” Phil realises he should’ve thought about what to say in this moment. “I picked up something extra on my way back from the shops. Don’t be, like… don’t be mad. Come in…” 

Dan opens the door, sees Susan who tilts her head at the sight of him. Phil is still shaken from the spook of his phone ringing, but he smiles when Dan shakes his head and says, “You Lesters and your proclivity for bringing home strays…” he laughs, crosses his arms and leans against the doorjamb. “Phil, explain?” 

“This is, er,” Phil clears his throat. Surely it’s so tight because he’s nervous, not because… well, because Susan’s presence is killing him. “This is Susan. She followed me home.” 

“She followed you home?” 

“Honest!” Phil says, “I had nothing to do with it. But look at her, look how cute she is, Dan…” 

“Phil, c’mon,” Dan says, cutting to the chase, “there are like... twenty reasons why we can’t keep this cat!”

“Name three,” Phil pouts.

Dan rolls his eyes and holds up his index finger, watching as Susan leaps from the counter to rub against his legs as well as Phil’s, meowing for the attention that has been drawn away from her. “For one, the landlord says no pets. We’ve been over this a million times, it’s why we don’t literally have a dog right now.” 

“Well, we’ve been meaning to move anyway,” Phil says, “What with all the drilling and cracked walls and zero storage. We’ll just hide Susan until we move to a place with a landlord that actually understands human affection for small furry creatures.”

Dan brings his hands to his temples. “Look, I’m not getting into whether or not our landlord is a furry sympathizer—”

“—Well, he’s clearly not!”

Dan holds up two fingers. “Second, TATINOF Australia is going to take like a month! We leave in a few freaking days. Do you really want what happened to your houseplants while we were in America to happen to this poor cat?” 

“We could get a cat-sitter, Dan, that’s not exactly unheard of.”

“Fine,” Dan says, holding up three fingers, “Really didn’t think I’d have to point this one out... you’re allergic to cats, Phil! You look like you’re literally dying right now... you wheeze every time she rubs against you.” 

They watch for a second as Susan does just that, slinking between Phil’s ankles and purring up a storm. She looks so cute that Phil wants to argue it’d be a worthwhile way to die. But he knows Dan’s right. Knew from the second he brought Susan into the apartment of course, but it was nice to ignore for a bit. 

He sighs. “I guess.” 

He must look sad enough that Dan takes pity on him. He places a hand on Phil’s shoulder and rubs softly with his thumb. “Also, she probably belongs to someone that loves her. Someone that’s missing her right now.” 

“I only asked for three reasons, Howell.” He picks Susan up and presses his face into her soft sides, which the burning in his eyes tells him immediately was a stupid idea, but he couldn’t possibly help himself. Dan reaches over to run a finger along her glabella. She purrs appreciatively. Twenty minutes at most, and Phil’s already quite heartbroken at giving up the idea of this little family. 

“No collar or anything,” Dan says. “We’ll google a shelter and see if she’s got a microchip.” 

That’s exactly what they end up doing, and Susan sits calmly in Phil’s lap during the uber ride though he’d been nervous that she might be a frantic cat in a car. But no, she’s just as calm as she’d been the whole time. She’s sweeter than all the cats they saw at the cat café or at the cat fortress they visited for that Happiness Week piece for the BBC— she’s just the sweetest cat in the whole world, he thinks, and that makes it easier to believe that despite literally every good reason Dan gave as to why they can’t keep her, maybe she was _meant_ to find Phil and follow him home. 

The vet at the shelter is a short, smiling woman, who reminds Phil a little bit of Kathy Bates, but specifically when she’d played the brassy woman in _Titanic_. 

“Oh, she’s a gentle thing,” the vet smiles, petting behind Susan’s ear and getting a thankful purr in response. “Must be with some elderly people that wouldn’t take any nonsense, is my guess. Someone a little more frail, so this cat learned to watch her strength.” 

It’s a nice image, Phil thinks. Susan sitting curled up on some tiny, wrinkled old woman’s lap.

The cat does have a microchip, and despite as serendipitous as the whole afternoon had felt, her name of course isn’t Susan at all. They were right in the random guess that she’s a girl though. She’s called Dottie, and Phil resists the urge to point out what a stupid name that is… she doesn’t have a single dot on her. The owners are contacted, and Dan and Phil are told with polite smiles that the shelter will take it from here. 

Then it’s over. Susan is out of their lives as quickly as she’d scampered in. 

And sure, breathing in a physical sense is immediately easier to manage even if Phil definitely needs a shower and a change of clothes to be put back to rights. But breathing is harder in a different way because they’re leaving the shelter catless and heading to a catless flat, and that just seems incredibly unfair right now for some reason. 

Dan rubs Phil’s back after his shower. They’re in the kitchen scrounging up some dinner from the groceries Phil bought at the start of this tiny adventure. “Sorry for being a dream crusher today,” he says. 

“I mean… you had to be reasonable. But it _did_ crush all my dreams and you’re a complete monster for it.” 

Dan kisses him. He slides his hands over Phil’s shoulders. “Will you ever forgive me?” he pouts. 

Phil smiles. “Maybe someday,” he says, “once the wound’s healed.” 

“Maybe a koala will follow you home from tour.” 

“Will you let me keep it if it does?” 

“Well you aren’t allergic to koalas, and you not dying makes me far more likely to agree… there’s still the landlord though.” 

“Even the worst furry haters love koalas, babe. He’ll be fine with it.” 

“Okay then,” Dan shakes his head and they both laugh. “But it has to follow you home, no koala stealing or we’ll be banned from the country.” 

“If you commit a crime in Australia, d’you think you just get stuck in this perpetual loop of being sent there for your crime, but being banished for your crime?” 

“We stopped sending criminals to Australia ages ago, you buffoon!”

“Ah,” Phil says, “for that very reason, I’m sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/184179859304/followed-me-home) !


End file.
